


Through Bars

by Starcrossedsky



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Gen, fanfic of a fanfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 17:36:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11190018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starcrossedsky/pseuds/Starcrossedsky
Summary: A snapshot of the events of The Tree of Life, Chapter 5, as told from behind the bars of a cage.Or: Being a voluntary host doesn't always mean sitting on the couch and watching TV, and it doesn't always mean planning the big conspiracies. Sometimes, it just means to watch.





	Through Bars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Poetry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poetry/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Tree of Life](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10932762) by [Poetry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poetry/pseuds/Poetry). 



"There. Look, it's happening again."

My head snapped up at my daemon's words, eyes going through the bars of the cage to where the Taxxons gathered at their watering hole. My usual restless pacing brought me over to the bars before more of the other people in the cage could react, and I pressed against the bars for a better view, Terciel's tail feathers wedged between my legs.

The blue arc of the Andalite jumping over the Taxxons was as incredible as it had been last time. _There goes Visser-bait_ , I thought grimly. And there went the other one, the hawk, flapping over to the pool itself. Terciel shrugged his wings between my legs, wishing for that power of flight, resisting the impulse to flap. Things were already going crazy enough in the cages, as the people around me realized what was going on, and the Hork-Bajir in _their_ cages banged their blades against the bars in a pounding rhythm. Adding a ten-foot wingspan to the tight space of the cage was just asking for trouble.

Somehow, somewhere in all this mess, a whole bunch of the voluntary hosts were supposed to disappear. To go and be free. I understood why, that it just wasn't possible to work out the logistics of rescuing involuntaries, but it still irked me, that the people least in need of rescue were the ones who got to go free.

_That's why we're here, isn't it?_ Terciel said to me, leaning against my leg as I turned to better see the battle. _To keep hope alive for them._

I reached down and scratched at his shoulder feathers, relishing the soft feeling between my fingers. I didn't voice my thoughts, even silently to him. He knew well enough the other reason that I stood here, in this cage, while other Peace Movement hosts went free. If the bandits failed, someone needed to remember that they tried.

The hawk screeched as a Dracon Beam seared its tail, dropping the cage it held clutched in its talons. I flinched uncontrollably, my fingers tightening in Terciel's feathers. I had no love for Yeerks on the whole, but Firtips was different. We had the same calling.

I'd wanted to be an author when I grew up, as a kid. Now I had different stories to tell, true and painful ones. I'd long ago lost any kind of faith, but I still closed my eyes, just for a breath, in a silent prayer that the Yeerk split open on the side of the machine was an Andalite trick. Then I opened them again, afraid to miss even a moment.

Behind me, most everyone else was watching the main part of the fighting, where large animals and Hork-Bajir Controllers fought it out. If nothing else, it gave all of us here, with our Yeerks in the Pool, a few moments more of precious freedom. No one would attempt reinfestation in this melee.

That story would be all over the cages for days, and I could get it later. I watched the story that no one else would tell, watched the Andalite in natural form catch his hawk comrade and leap over the fence to the area with the Hork-Bajir children.

It wasn't long after that that things began to settle down again, as the other bandits also vanished. The air of adrenaline in the cages died down, though I knew the Hork-Bajir would keep banging their blades and chanting for freedom for some time. It made it hard to hear the conversations in my own cage, much less the others.

"Why're they wasting time rescuing _slugs_?" came a man's voice from behind me and a little to my right. I turned towards it, leaning my shoulder against the bars instead of my chest. James Abernathy was a few years older than me, one of the unfortunate computer engineering majors snapped up in the last year, but he was something like a friend, even if I couldn't tell him the other side of my life. "Seriously, Vil, when are they going to help _us_?"

The nickname made me smile, as it always did. He was one of the few who respected my chosen name, _Vilahri_ , the Andalite term for a white dwarf star. Most of the others in the cages didn't care enough, though they understood when I explained it.

(Or at least, they understood wanting a different name, an identity that no Yeerk had touched, once they'd been here long enough. Not the other reasons.)

I couldn't tell him the real reasons, of course. He was truly involuntary, the way I used to be, before Essim 740 got promoted and wanted off Earth and out of me. I could still remember so clearly the shock of a stranger in my head, of kindness where I expected taunting, of Iswam's _I'm so sorry._ It wasn't something safe to say, here in the cages. I didn't _Jay_ would judge, but I'd seen other involuntaries, people with temper problems and no control over their lives, strike out for less in the way of "slug sympathies."

So I lied. I'm good at that. "Well, it pisses off the Visser, doesn't it?" I said with a shrug. "Anyone who pisses him off enough to be tortured to death instead of just executed is probably at least a potential ally for them."

Jay frowned, but nodded and looked over at the earth mover, looking thoughtful. I didn't push him for what was going through his head, especially when the cage next to us was opened and a screaming woman was dragged out of it. Neither of us flinched at the sound anymore, but I saw his blue butterfly daemon on his shoulder flapping her wings in distress.

"I heard there were some kind of crackdowns in the Pool itself," Jay said finally. I couldn't help the way my eyebrows shot up. "Not that Nine-Oh actually talks to _me_ , but... They can't keep everything back you know?"

"I've been here longer than you," I reminded him gently. It was closer to four years than three, now, and I'd only had Iswam for the last eight months. I'd been sixteen, foolish, and hoping that the Sharing would give me a way to be comfortable in my own skin, to be a better _son_. "Trust me, I know."

He nodded and looked out at the Pool again, his hand nervously clasping the lanyard around his neck, even though his daemon wasn't in it. Tics like that didn't just disappear. "The slugs are worried. There's a rebellion brewing in there somewhere, some kind of Peace Movement or something. Nine-Oh's been thinking about joining, when he thinks I'm not paying attention."

My heart leapt. Iswam said that there had been many converts because of the crackdowns, but it was something else to hear it on _this_ side, filtering down even to the involuntary hosts.

"Why?" Terciel asked, because my words were too stuck in my throat to bear. It was only with the ability to go blank, like I wasn't feeling anything at all, that I was keeping my face under control. My daemon didn't have that problem.

"I don't know," Jay said, loud enough for everyone around us to hear, but his daemon fluttered down from her perch and landed on the top of Terciel's head.

I could just barely see her antennae flicking as she whispered, "He heard a story. Something about another planet, where people work together with Yeerks. He asked us what would have to change for us to go voluntary."

I was beyond words. On the one hand, the Peace Movement, the cause my partner had devoted himself to, was _working_. But on the other hand, if Jay went voluntary, I would lose one of my only friends here in the cages, one of the people who kept me sane, who saw _Vilahri_ instead of _Andrew_.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I was spared from answering by the door of the cage opening and a Controller pointing at me demandingly. I closed my eyes, and whispered, "Talk soon," to Jay as I stepped out the door, Terciel shuffling behind me, both of us downcast like good involuntaries who no longer have the will to resist.

\----

Not being alone in my skull, once a terrible violation, was now a blessing, because it meant that I no longer had to worry about controlling my emotions to keep them from showing on my face. Once Iswam was settled in, I let it all spill over - my hopes, my fears, the unexpected bite of loss at the idea of Jay leaving the cages behind.

_Slow down_ , came Iswam's reply as we navigated our way towards the exit. _I thought you were going to tell me everything about the escape!_ He didn't reach for my memories, the way Essim would have, and for that I was grateful. I'm sure he could see I was still trying to make sense of things.

_Sorry_ , I said. _It's just... I never thought Aftran 090 would even_ consider _the Movement. If we're reaching even people like them -_

_They're one of the home-loving conservative types,_ Iswam said. _I'm not surprised. Anyway, you're diverting - show me!_

Terciel fluffed his feathers, and I couldn't help but feel a little amusement. Sometimes I felt like the adult in this relationship, even though I was only barely twenty and Iswam had the Yeerk equivalent of a degree in astro-mapping. Still, my amusement quelled at the thought of the battle; I _opened_ , and showed Iswam what I had seen. For a moment, my head was silent, and then I felt him echo my prayer for Firtips' survival.

_Illim will know,_ he said. _We only have to get through this rane._

I gave a mental gesture that was equivalent to nodding, something less words and more emotions that I'd picked up from Iswam himself. We made our way out to my car and I opened the door for Terciel to hop into the passenger's seat before going around to mine. Once inside, I slumped against the seat. It felt good to do, all these little gestures of emotion that I didn't have for so long.

_It's okay to be upset about Jay,_ Iswam said, and I swear I could feel him sinking deeper into my brain, letting some measure of comfort flow through where our nerves connected. I stroked one of Terciel's wings. It was the reassurance I didn't want to admit to needing, that I didn't have to be perfectly in control all the time. Such is life with a Yeerk.

_It's not just that,_ Terciel said, fluffing his wings under my fingers. _It's... hard, almost feeling like we can tell him. Having someone else know is even more tempting than leaving the cages with him._

Iswam considered for a moment. Then he said, _You know, Illim told one of Firtips' stories today._

I didn't see how it related, but I perked up a little anyway. I don't always understand Yeerk stories, but I like listening to them, the same way I'd always leaned as close to the Hork-Bajir cages as I could when I was first taken, hoping to hear some of _their_ stories through the bars. 

_He's not as good of a storyteller as Firtips,_ Iswam said, laughing a little. _But it was about - I guess 'explorer' is the closest translation..._

Terciel and I listened, my daemon climbing over the emergency brake to lean against my leg. When iswam finished, I was smiling, centered again. Where the Yeerks in the chat had seen a reminder that death comes eventually, for me it was something else.

Even if I sometimes hated my self-assigned duty, I _had_ chosen it. Someone had to watch, and remember.

_Even if we fail?_ Iswam asked to my thoughts. I smiled, and started the car.

_Especially if we fail,_ I said silently. 

Because eventually, someone won't.

**Author's Note:**

> A little more character information; Vilahri is trans, and she initially went to the Sharing trying to get help figuring herself out when she realized that being a boy made her unhappy. Terciel didn't settle until after she became a Controller (a very late settling), when she realized that the Hork-bajir were telling stories of their homeland in the cages, and that humans might need that someday, too. He's a California condor (which is infamous as a success story for species returning from the brink of extinction, and also one of the largest birds in North America; there's a lot of other thoughts going into that choice).
> 
> Jay's daemon is settled as a Mission Blue Butterfly, another highly endangered species. It's a small blue butterfly native to the San Francisco Bay region.


End file.
